I’d like to get solar panels and powerwalls for my house. About a year ago I got a number of quotes for solar, including one from Tesla where they came out to my house to do a site survey, and came back with a custom system designed for my house. I really liked the Tesla quote and I was so close to pulling the trigger, but unfortunately some stuff came up unexpectedly at the time and it didn’t happen.
Those issues have been resolved and I’m ready to move forward with solar again. I’ve gotten new quotes on energy sage and from Tesla again, but Tesla has now moved to a cookie cutter one size fits all model and I’m just not getting warm fuzzy feelings from Tesla’s new quote. The system I was quoted last year was about 14kW and at the time, after the site survey, they told me that I couldn’t go any bigger because they couldn’t fit any more panels on my roof without putting panels on the section facing north north east. As I recall that was about 38 or 40 panels total.
But now, without looking at anything more than a google maps image they are telling me that they’ll have no problem putting 48 panels on my roof for a 15.12kW cookie cutter solar install. I asked what happens if they get here and discover that they won’t all fit and I was told “Oh, that’s no problem, if that happens we’ll just put some panels on the north north east side and your production might be a little less than we estimated. But don’t worry, you won’t have to pay any extra”.
Additionally, the quote from last year included power optimizers and the quote from this year does not. I do have a tree that provides some partial shading on my roof during certain times of the day, so I think the power optimizers would be beneficial.
So because of all that I like some of the third party quotes that I’ve gotten a lot better. They all seem to use micro inverters and can customize the system based on the size of my roof, rather than trying to shoehorn in a predetermined number of panels. However, I also really want to add powerwalls to the system and this is where things get complicated.
Some of the third party installers that have given me quotes are authorized to install powerwalls, but they are quoting prices that are much higher than Tesla. Tesla quoted four powerwalls to go with the 15kW solar system. The total installed cost of those four powerwalls was $22,100 before the tax incentives. The third party companies quoted $19,200 to install two powerwalls.
It looks like I do have an option to just get powerwalls from Tesla without the solar install, but that’s a little more expensive. It’s showing a cost of $27,100 for four powerwalls and the supporting hardware and also says that it doesn’t include ‘electrical upgrades’, so potentially the cost could be more in the end. Additionally, it’s my understanding that the powerwalls will only qualify for the federal tax incentive if they are installed with solar panels.
So after all that, I guess here are my questions...
-If I do go with non Tesla solar panels will they still integrate well with the powerwalls? Will I be missing any features?
-Is it worth going with the Tesla solar quote, even though it doesn’t seem like the best solar option, just to save a considerable amount of money on the powerwalls? $22,100 before tax incentives or $16,354 after the tax incentives seems like a great price for four powerwalls.
-Any other things that I should be thinking about here? I feel like I’m pretty well over my head with all of this.
Oh, and a couple of final notes, even the 15.12kW system will not meet 100% of my power demand. Among my air conditioner here in Florida, my Model S, a large fish tank, and a pool I average about 70kW a day in the winter and can go over 100kW a day in the summer. I actually went through and added up my power bills and I used a grand total of 33389kWh over all of 2019. Tesla is estimating an annual production of about 19368kWh.
Additionally, there is no time of use billing here, so the goal of the powerwalls would be simply for whole house backup in the event of a power outage. Ideally I would like to continue operating the house indefinitely in the event of an extended power failure - I lost power for more than 3 days after hurricane matthew. I realize that I’ll need to cut back my power consumption for that to happen, but I’d still like to be able to run my air conditioner and make sure the fish tank and fridge and other critical things have power.
Thanks for all of your thoughts
Those issues have been resolved and I’m ready to move forward with solar again. I’ve gotten new quotes on energy sage and from Tesla again, but Tesla has now moved to a cookie cutter one size fits all model and I’m just not getting warm fuzzy feelings from Tesla’s new quote. The system I was quoted last year was about 14kW and at the time, after the site survey, they told me that I couldn’t go any bigger because they couldn’t fit any more panels on my roof without putting panels on the section facing north north east. As I recall that was about 38 or 40 panels total.
But now, without looking at anything more than a google maps image they are telling me that they’ll have no problem putting 48 panels on my roof for a 15.12kW cookie cutter solar install. I asked what happens if they get here and discover that they won’t all fit and I was told “Oh, that’s no problem, if that happens we’ll just put some panels on the north north east side and your production might be a little less than we estimated. But don’t worry, you won’t have to pay any extra”.
Additionally, the quote from last year included power optimizers and the quote from this year does not. I do have a tree that provides some partial shading on my roof during certain times of the day, so I think the power optimizers would be beneficial.
So because of all that I like some of the third party quotes that I’ve gotten a lot better. They all seem to use micro inverters and can customize the system based on the size of my roof, rather than trying to shoehorn in a predetermined number of panels. However, I also really want to add powerwalls to the system and this is where things get complicated.
Some of the third party installers that have given me quotes are authorized to install powerwalls, but they are quoting prices that are much higher than Tesla. Tesla quoted four powerwalls to go with the 15kW solar system. The total installed cost of those four powerwalls was $22,100 before the tax incentives. The third party companies quoted $19,200 to install two powerwalls.
It looks like I do have an option to just get powerwalls from Tesla without the solar install, but that’s a little more expensive. It’s showing a cost of $27,100 for four powerwalls and the supporting hardware and also says that it doesn’t include ‘electrical upgrades’, so potentially the cost could be more in the end. Additionally, it’s my understanding that the powerwalls will only qualify for the federal tax incentive if they are installed with solar panels.
So after all that, I guess here are my questions...
-If I do go with non Tesla solar panels will they still integrate well with the powerwalls? Will I be missing any features?
-Is it worth going with the Tesla solar quote, even though it doesn’t seem like the best solar option, just to save a considerable amount of money on the powerwalls? $22,100 before tax incentives or $16,354 after the tax incentives seems like a great price for four powerwalls.
-Any other things that I should be thinking about here? I feel like I’m pretty well over my head with all of this.
Oh, and a couple of final notes, even the 15.12kW system will not meet 100% of my power demand. Among my air conditioner here in Florida, my Model S, a large fish tank, and a pool I average about 70kW a day in the winter and can go over 100kW a day in the summer. I actually went through and added up my power bills and I used a grand total of 33389kWh over all of 2019. Tesla is estimating an annual production of about 19368kWh.
Additionally, there is no time of use billing here, so the goal of the powerwalls would be simply for whole house backup in the event of a power outage. Ideally I would like to continue operating the house indefinitely in the event of an extended power failure - I lost power for more than 3 days after hurricane matthew. I realize that I’ll need to cut back my power consumption for that to happen, but I’d still like to be able to run my air conditioner and make sure the fish tank and fridge and other critical things have power.
Thanks for all of your thoughts
